Poor, pitiful China! Despite the fact that Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian didn't say "abolish" when sending the National Unification Council and Guidelines off to the dustbin of history (but not to the incinerator; therefore, any future president can recover the shreds if they dare), despite saying that "We do not intend to change the status quo," and despite the fact that Chen's words were approved by US officials involved in vetting his speech, the Super-Commies are once again crying in their baby food:

BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhuanet by Tian Sulei, Fan Xi) -- The Chinese mainland said Tuesday that Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian played with words to cheat the Taiwan people and the world, but his intention to seek "Taiwan independence" is known to all.

"Such tricks of Chen Shui-bian have already been seen through by the world. He will only end up hurting himself in this farce," says a statement jointly issued by the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

I've got yer "farce" right here!
Note the URL behind the link to that article contains something unusual near the beginning: the word "anonymizer." While a Google News search called up the article which I had found via something I read in my Bloglines news feeds, I couldn't get anywhere past Xinhua's main English page. Anonymizer let me get in almost immediately. Is China trying to prevent anyone in Taiwan from even seeing that article? It would certainly appear so.

I won't let them do it!
Here is the original URL to that article:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/28/content_4240017.htm

And here is a list of web-based circumvention services via Reporters Without Borders web site:

http://www.anonymizer.com
http://www.unipeak.com
http://www.anonymouse.ws
http://www.proxyweb.net [LINK FIXED]
http://www.guardster.com
http://www.webwarper.net
http://www.proxify.com
http://www.the-cloak.com

Follow the "list" link for instructions, if the anonymizer link to the article doesn't work.

But let's go back to the content of the Xinhua article for a moment. It also contained this steaming pile of nonsense:

The United States, which pursues a policy of strategic ambiguity in cross-Strait relations in which it neither supports formal Taiwanese independence nor a forcible Chinese takeover of the island, cautioned Taiwan against taking destabilizing unilateral actions.

Despite the oh-so-destabilizing, ever-growing number of Chinese missiles terrorizing us, Taiwan gets blamed. More of that "black is white" garbage that needs urgent removal.

Abe Lincoln comes to Taiwan
It was quite an experience to hear President Chen on Tuesday afternoon giving a speech which was broadcast live on FTV. (To be clear, I was watching at home.) He was speaking Hoklo (Taiwanese) to victims of the "228 Incident" of February 28, 1947 which resulted in KMT troops killing tens of thousands of Taiwanese and imposing almost four decades of martial law on Taiwan.

During that speech, Taipei mayor and current KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou was seated in the front row, his face twisting into a myriad of strange shapes, as he had just a day earlier launched a campaign to recall President Chen (at Beijing's behest?). During that speech, the president quoted Abraham Lincoln's famous words: "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

My ears sure pricked up when I heard that (in Taiwanese) and understood it perfectly. The people in attendance ate it up. While others applauded Chen's words, Chairman Ma sat right in front of him grimacing uncomfortably. Chen asked the audience four times, "Was it wrong" for him to hand the "unification" decision back to the 23 million people of Taiwan? The answer each time was a resounding "NO!"

When it came time for Chair-Mayor Ma to speak to the crowd, they were angry, though non-violent. They didn't want to hear any of his two-faced bullshit. They shouted at him, and some had prepared banners in protest. What I saw was too quick to report the content. (I had seen this later on the news as FTV cut away from Chen's speech before it was over.)

In the end, as those present appeared to be filing out, Chen shook Ma's hand, proving once again that for all his faults, he has "political" skills beyond my wildest imaginings.

More words feared by China
Will George Carlin take these on?

The Washington Post has finally revealed a list of the words deemed as too kryptonite-like for use on web sites in China. Of the 236 words listed, 18 are "obscenities" while the rest fall into the categories of "politics or current affairs." Of those, 7 are related to Taiwan:

Establish Taiwan Country Movement Organization

Great President Chen Shui-bian

Independent League of Taiwan Youth

Independent Taiwan Association

New Party

Taiwan Freedom League

Taiwan Political Discussion Zone

Oh my fucking non-existent deity! How 1984 can they get?!

It must have been at least 15 years ago that I heard guitarpist [sic] Phil deGruy intone to a Louie Armstrong melody at New Orleans' Howlin' Wolf nightclub, "And I say to myself -- goddammit -- what a sick twisted world." The news events described above bring that line back as if it were only yesterday.

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Democracies and conspiracies: Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, National Unification Guidelines, National Unification Council, Ma Ying-jeou, unificationists, Kuomintang, KMT, China, People's Republic of China, PRC, censorship, Taiwan Independence, Taidu, 228, missiles